The Broken Chain
by SailOnSilvergirl
Summary: Post-Reichenbach. One week after Sherlock's return, John is on the roof of St. Bart's. Can the broken chain of their friendship/relationship be mended?
1. Chapter 1

**This story is written in two parts. Both stories are about love. **

**Chapter 1 is Friendship - __****filios, ****in this case, the love of an intense friendship, bromance, if you will. **It is written specifically for those who prefer not to read slash. There are no warnings for Chapter 1.

**Chapter 2 is the same story, but written as _eros_, the love of a sexual partner; Johnlock. Warnings: Explicit but not smutty. In trying to stick strictly with the aired BBC Sherlock, I don't personally ship the boys. However, there is a lot of very good slash out there that I do read, even though I consider it a sort of AU. This story is the results of a friend's challenge. She said, "I know you don't write slash, but if you did, what would it be like?" **

* * *

**Listen to the wind blow  
Down comes the night  
Run in the shadows  
Damn your love, damn your lies  
And if you don't love me now  
You will never love me again  
I can still hear you sayin'  
You would never break the chain**

**Fleetwood Mac – The Chain**

* * *

The security guard was conducting routine rounds on the fourth floor of St. Bart's when he saw him. He recognized the man immediately and quickly called the morgue, urgently asking to speak with the recently resurrected Sherlock Holmes.

"Mr. Holmes, I thought you'd want to know. Thought it was odd, considering, you know, that you've just got back, you know, from the dead."

"Your point?"

"Dr. Watson just took the stairs to the roof."

Sherlock disconnected and bolted past the ancient, fickle elevator, and took the stairs two at a time. He covered the distance in under a minute and stood at the door, calming himself before he dared move. He opened the roof door slowly, unsure of what he would find on the other side.

The lone figure, huddled in his jacket, with a decidedly green cast to his face, sat on the roof's surface with his back to the ledge. The wind was brisk, causing him to shudder. Or maybe it wasn't the wind.

The week home with Sherlock had been awkward at best. After he had revealed himself, after John's initial shock, the desperate embrace, the tears, followed by the rage, the swearing and punches, John had pulled back, becoming aloof, unapproachable, and then ultimately, cold. John had hardly spoken to him since.

Their lives had been torn asunder, shredded by Moriarty's brilliant plot which had culminated on this rooftop. Sherlock was back now, but theirs was still an empty house because the rift was too great, the pain too deep.

Sherlock swallowed heavily. John Watson was sitting exactly under the spot on the ledge where Sherlock had stood when he… Sherlock did _not_ want to be here. But this is where John was. And John was his friend.

_Friend. _Sherlock scoffed at the pathetic limitations of the English language. _Friend_ was woefully inaccurate in describing the complexity of their relationship. Yes, he was a friend. A best friend. They shared _something_ deeper, indefinable, and indisputable. They would kill for one another, die for one another; indeed, had.

A centuries-old Celtic – no, Irish Gaelic, Sherlock corrected himself – expression rose from his memory: _anam kara_, literally, soul-friend, originally meant to apply to men in battle. The phrase meant that parts of their souls intermingled, as each shared a part of himself with the other; a deep intimacy of mind and heart that made mere physically intimacy pale in comparison. John was, surely, his brother-in-arms (_God, no, not like Mycroft_) in the battlefield that was London. _Anam kara_, then. John was his soul friend, and their friendship defied definition, convention, or limitation.

Sherlock feigned nonchalance, hoping his voice did not betray him. "Checking out the view?"

John matched his tone. "Well, I did only see it from the other side."

Sherlock forced a steady breath. "I've seen it. Not something I recommend."

John made to get up, and Sherlock extended a hand to him.

"Don't. Just don't," John snapped. He rose to his feet and walked away from the edge, deliberately giving Sherlock a wide berth.

Sherlock let out a stuttering breath. "John, why the hell–?

"I needed to see…" He cleared his throat. "I saw where you died. I thought I needed to see where you… " John's breath caught. "Stupid idea."

How was Sherlock supposed to respond to that?

Sherlock turned and found himself staring at the part of ledge where he had dangled Moriarty over the edge, where Moriarty had played his trump card.

"When he threatened to kill you, I knew that I couldn't…continue…without you."

"Yet you made me continue without you."

Sherlock cringed. It was cruel and John knew it. God knows, he knew cruel when he saw it—he'd been on the receiving end that day at Bart's.

John paced, putting some distance between them. "Afterwards…" John said, "I hated that everyone else was alive but someone who I loved wasn't. I hated that the goddamn sun came up every morning. I hated that I woke up every day… Well, damn you and damn your lies!" John's shoulders slumped. He looked down at the ground. "God, I hate you," he said simply.

Despite what others may have thought, their love had never been physical, but it was undeniable. Sherlock was left with one gut-wrenching question: John was alive, but in saving him had he ruined _them_?

All week, John's eyes had been accusing. The vehemence was still there. "How—?" But there were so many hows, so many questions. _How could you? _How could you lie to me? How could you not tell me? How could you let this go on for so long? How could you wake up every morning thinking that I was all right? How little did you really know me? How could you dare to meet Moriarty alone _again_? How can you look me in the eye? How could we have meant what we do to one another and still have you do this? How will we ever be all right again? How can I forgive you? How could you think you can just come back to life, back into my life, and pick up where we left off?

John held him in a penetrating stare and was startled when saw in Sherlock's eyes the same nerviness he'd seen in the eyes of soldiers coming off the front lines. Then he looked—really looked—at Sherlock for the fist time since his return, and what he saw there staggered him. The detective realized that John was _deducing_ him, and by God, he saw it all. Sherlock had kept it hidden behind a stony façade in the days since he'd been home. He couldn't mask the weight loss, the dark circles under his eyes, but he had kept everything else hidden, and here was John, taking him apart piece by piece, seeing every desperate pursuit, every fight to the death, every injury, every victory, every failure, the sleepless nights, the months of isolation, the sadness, the loss, the hurt. Sherlock allowed John to see it all.

It was too intimate, too intense for both of them. Sherlock turned away. The wind picked up again and Sherlock moved with it, letting it steer him toward the other side of the roof.

John's eyes, cobalt blue against a rare cloudless London sky, looked anywhere but at Sherlock. When he turned back, he saw Sherlock staring for a moment at a point on the roof's surface then quickly turning away.

A stain.

The roofing material was mottled an oddly coloured brown from where it had absorbed Moriarty's blood; some stains never wash out, London downpours notwithstanding.

John saw the tension in Sherlock's body, in his face, which had gone pale. "You shouldn't be up here."

"It's all right." Clearly it was not.

John moved to leave when Sherlock reached out suddenly and grabbed his arm. The contact was electric. John startled, turned. His eyes were livid but he held Sherlock's gaze. Sherlock tensed, uncertain. He waited.

"I'm warning you, Sherlock. Get your hands off me." John's voice was ice.

Sherlock knew that he had to do something to make John snap, to break the shattering silence that had gone on between them. He saw that John's right hand had curled into a fist. The detective yanked John closer, their eyes locking.

"Or what, John? You'll hit me again?"

Sherlock still brandished the deep cut on the corner of his mouth, the horrid purple and yellowing bruise on his cheekbone. He released John's arm and spread his arms wide in mocking invitation.

"Go ahead. Take whatever primitive action that pedestrian brain of yours tells you to do, but we _are_ going to have this talk."

"Talk?" he scoffed, and turned away. He took a step toward the stairs, then suddenly reversed direction.

"You know what you can do with your talk?" His fist was already half-way through its strike. Instead of connecting with Sherlock's jaw, it was intercepted by the steely barrier of Sherlock's hand. John's muscles were quivering, whether from rage or exertion Sherlock couldn't tell. The taller man spun his friend 180 degrees, then pushed him away.

"We're going to talk."

"Go to hell!"

John renewed his attack, skillfully going low and putting his shoulder into it, knocking them both to the ground.

"You left!" John screamed, a combination of anguish and betrayal.

Sherlock tried to get free but he was hampered by his coat, which twisted around his leg. John saw his advantage and seized it, scissoring one of Sherlock's legs between his own. He manoeuvered Sherlock's arm behind him so that it was wrenched against John's chest, leaving John's mouth next to Sherlock's ear.

"You lied!"

Sherlock elbowed John in the ribs and broke the hold, but John was on top of him now and got a punch in, opening the gash on Sherlock's mouth, and they rolled again as Sherlock tried to throw him off.

"You lied," John cried out, stuck in an emotional loop. The momentum shifted and Sherlock surged under him, rolling the pair again until John was pinned by six foot of muscle.

Sherlock had one hand pushing on John's shoulder and the other raised in a block when they smashed into the stairwell with such force that Sherlock lost his grip on John's shoulder and ended in a face plant on John's stomach with a loud "Oomph!"

John was the first to lose it. He started to laugh, the high pitched giggle that left Sherlock defenceless. Sherlock joined in. They were both laughing uncontrollably, lungs heaving, but John managed, "Get off me, you git."

Still laughing, Sherlock rolled gracelessly away, pushing himself to his knees in front of his friend. John mirrored his position and his laughs had taken on a desperate, hysterical note. Sherlock quieted. He held out a tentative hand to his friend's shoulder. John sagged against him. He shuddered until his body became wracked by huge, cathartic sobs, his head buried in Sherlock's neck, but it was Sherlock's knees that weakened, and it was impossible to tell who lowered whom to the ground.

* * *

Ten minutes later, they were still sitting on the roof's surface, their backs propped up against the wall, legs extended in front of them, not looking at each other.

During his absence, Mycroft, of course, had kept Sherlock informed about John, but even his surveillance had not discerned the depths of John's grief, the crushing insomnia, the weight loss, the isolation.

"John, I had no idea."

"That's because you're an idiot."

"I've never been good at understanding how other people feel." Sherlock balled his hands into fists.

"Yeah, I got that."

"It was only after I left the country and the long days and nights…without you…that I understood, a bit. The enormity of being alone…" Sherlock's voice trailed off.

"Yes." John understood. Of course he understood.

"The biggest difference, of course, was that I knew you were alive."

"Yes," came the choked reply, and it almost broke Sherlock.

Sherlock was unnerved by a very uncharacteristic thought: if he lost John's friendship would he lose a part of his soul, too? If their _anam kara_ was a broken chain? And then he had a sudden insight: is that what had happened to John during these grief-stricken months? He felt nauseous. _My God, no wonder the man felt betrayed._

After a ragged breath, he was able to continue. "By that time I was so entangled in the web that—. I was already committed, and you were still in danger. The only choice left was to finish it quickly, and come home." Sherlock risked a glance at John before looking away. "Am I home, John?"

John didn't answer. Sherlock squeezed his eyes shut. After a moment, John pushed himself to his feet and held his hand out to Sherlock. It wasn't forgiveness, not even close, but it was a beginning.

"And you'd do it again, wouldn't you, you bastard?"

"If the result was that Lestrade, Mrs. Hudson…" his throat tightened, "And you would live? Yes."

"Because friends protect each other." John sighed, coming to some kind of uneasy understanding that if the situations had been reversed, he might have done the same thing.

The wind picked up and the sun dipped behind the taller buildings. The men stood, got themselves sorted. Their clothing was in disarray and filthy from the rooftop. There was blood down the front of John's jumper and trousers, and worse—the seam of Sherlock's flies had split open.

"Well this is awkward. I don't fancy having to explain this."

"Indeed." Sherlock said, as he shrugged into his coat. "We'll have to shield it from onlookers."

"Easy for you to say. You've got that Belstaff to hide behind."

"Then walk behind me."

"Don't I always?" "Not anymore, John. By my side. Always."


	2. Chapter 2

**One story; two versions. Both stories are about love. **

**Chapter 1 is Friendship - __****filios, ****in this case, the love of an intense friendship, bromance, if you will. **It is written specifically for those who prefer not to read slash. There are no warnings for Chapter I.

**Chapter 2, below, is the same story, but written as eros-the love of a sexual partner; Johnlock. ****Warnings: Rating is Mature; explicit but not smutty. **

**In trying to stick strictly with the aired BBC Sherlock, I don't ship the boys. However, there is a lot of very good slash out there that I do read, even though I consider it a sort of AU. This story is the results of a friend's challenge. She said, "I know you don't write slash, but if you did, what would it be like?" **

**If slash isn't your thing, please read Chapter 1 instead. **

* * *

**Listen to the wind blow  
Down comes the night  
Run in the shadows  
Damn your love, damn your lies****  
And if you don't love me now  
You will never love me again  
I can still hear you sayin'  
You would never break the chain**

** Fleetwood Mac – The Chain**

The security guard was conducting routine rounds on the fourth floor of St. Bart's when he saw him. He recognized the man immediately and quickly called the morgue, urgently asking to speak with the recently resurrected Sherlock Holmes.

"Mr. Holmes, I thought you'd want to know. Thought it was odd, considering, you know, that you've just got back, you know, from the dead."

"Your point?"

"Dr. Watson just took the stairs to the roof."

Sherlock disconnected and bolted past the ancient, fickle elevator, and took the stairs two at a time. He covered the distance in under a minute and stood at the door, calming himself before he dared move. He opened the roof door slowly, unsure of what he would find on the other side.

The lone figure, huddled in his jacket, with a decidedly green cast to his face, sat on the roof's surface with his back to the ledge. The wind was brisk, causing him to shudder. Or maybe it wasn't the wind.

The week home with Sherlock had been awkward at best. After he had revealed himself, after John's initial shock, the passionate embrace, the tears, the kisses, followed by the rage, the swearing and punches, John had pulled back, becoming aloof, unapproachable, and then ultimately, cold. They hadn't touched since.

They'd been together as a couple only a short time when Moriarty made his reappearance. After months of denial and avoidance, they finally, awkwardly, succumbed to the obvious. In the beginning, they were ridiculously smitten. They were even known to wear foolish grins around each other; Sherlock never in public, of course (although everyone knew), insisting that it was "unprofessional." John was just too happy to care. _Happy_ was not an adjective easily ascribed to Sherlock, but he was more peaceful, like a ship anchored in safe harbour.

And then their lives and their hearts were torn asunder, shredded by Moriarty's brilliant plot that had culminated on this rooftop. Sherlock was back now, but theirs was still an empty house because the rift was too great, the pain too deep.

Sherlock swallowed heavily. John Watson was sitting exactly under the spot on the ledge where Sherlock had stood when he… Sherlock did _not_ want to be here. But this is where John was.

A centuries-old Celtic—no, Irish Gaelic, he corrected himself—expression rose in his memory: _anam kara_, literally, soul-friend, originally meant to apply to men in battle. The term meant that parts of their souls intermingled, as each shared a part of himself with the other; a deep intimacy of mind and heart. And, if you were among those rare ones, your _anam kara_ was also your beloved. John was, surely, his brother-in-arms (_God, no, not like Mycroft_) in the battlefield that was London. They would kill for one another, die for one another; indeed, had. _ Anam kara_. John was his soul-friend, his love, and their relationship defied definition, convention, or limitation.

He feigned nonchalance, hoping his voice did not betray him. "Checking out the view?"

John matched his tone. "Well, I did only see it from the other side."

Sherlock forced a steady breath. "I've seen it. Not something I recommend."

John made to get up, and Sherlock extended a hand to him.

"Don't. Just don't," John snapped. He rose to his feet and walked away from the edge, deliberately giving Sherlock a wide berth.

Sherlock let out a stuttering breath. "John, why the hell—?

"I needed to see…" He cleared his throat. "I saw where you died. I thought I needed to see where you…" John's breath caught. "Stupid idea."

How was Sherlock supposed to respond to that?

Sherlock turned and found himself staring at the part of ledge where he had dangled Moriarty over the edge, where Moriarty had played his trump card.

"When he threatened to kill you, I knew that I couldn't live without you."

"Yet you made me live without you."

Sherlock cringed. It was cruel and John knew it. God knows, he knew cruel when he saw it—he'd been on the receiving end that day at Bart's.

John paced, putting some distance between them. "Afterwards," John said, "I hated that everyone else was alive but someone I loved wasn't. I hated that the goddamn sun came up every morning. I hated that I woke up every day… Well, damn your love and damn your lies!" John's shoulders slumped. He looked down at the ground. "God, I hate you," he said simply.

Sherlock was left with one gut-wrenching question: John was alive, but in saving him had he ruined _them_?

All week, John's eyes had been accusing. The vehemence was still there. "How—?" But there were so many hows, so many questions. _How could you? _How could you lie to me? How could you not tell me? How could you let this go on for so long? How could you wake up every morning thinking that I was all right? How little did you really know me? How could you dare to meet Moriarty alone _again_? How can you look me in the eye? How could we have meant what we do to one another and still have you do this? How will we ever be all right again? How can I forgive you? How could you think you can just come back to life, back into my life, and pick up where we left off?

John held him in a penetrating stare and was startled when he saw in Sherlock's eyes the same nerviness he'd seen in the eyes of soldiers coming off the front lines. Then he looked— really looked—at Sherlock for the fist time since his return, and what he saw there staggered him. The detective realized that John was _deducing_ him, and by God, John saw it all. Sherlock had kept everything hidden behind a stony façade in the days since he'd been home. He couldn't mask the weight loss, the dark circles under his eyes, but he had kept everything else buried, and here was John, taking him apart piece by piece, seeing every desperate pursuit, every fight to the death, every injury, every victory, every failure, the sleepless nights, the months of isolation, the sadness, the loss, the hurt. Sherlock allowed John to see it all.

It was too intimate, too intense for both of them. Sherlock turned away. The wind picked up again and Sherlock moved with it, letting it steer him toward the other side of the roof.

John's eyes, a deep cobalt blue against a rare cloudless London sky, looked anywhere but at Sherlock. When he turned back, he saw Sherlock staring for a moment at a point on the roof's surface then quickly turning away.

A stain.

The roofing material was mottled an oddly coloured brown from where it had absorbed Moriarty's blood; some stains never wash out, London downpours notwithstanding. John saw the tension in Sherlock's body; his face, which had gone pale. "You shouldn't be up here."

"It's all right." Clearly it was not.

John moved to leave when Sherlock reached out suddenly and grabbed his arm. The contact was electric. John startled, turned. His eyes were livid but he held Sherlock's gaze. Sherlock tensed, uncertain. He waited. Two seconds…five…

John pulled out of Sherlock's grip and pushed him by the shoulders, knocking him against the stairwell wall. He turned away, turned back, and lunged forward, capturing Sherlock's mouth with his own. The kiss was urgent, fevered, and forceful as his tongue claimed Sherlock's mouth. Sherlock's hands began to rise but John slapped them away. Finally, John broke the contact long enough to gasp in a breath, and look into his partner's pale blue eyes.

"You lied to me. You _lied_."

Sherlock saw something in John's eyes—something feral and dangerous—that made him freeze. John roughly pushed off Sherlock's scarf and coat.

Sherlock stood unmoving. This wasn't about him. This wasn't about them. This was about John, because until Sherlock could make things right, there was no _them. _He understood that what was happening was primal. Whatever John needed, Sherlock would give to him. He stood, arms ever so slightly extended from his sides, palms up, in total acquiescence. Then John's hands were everywhere, frantically touching, rediscovering, reclaiming, his tongue plundering Sherlock's mouth.

Sherlock burned for this man. "John," he said in his deepest baritone, the voice he hadn't used since leaving Baker Street.

They were both panting now and hard. John pulled Sherlock's shirt out of his waistband, and his hands were on bare skin of Sherlock's back, and they both shuddered at the contact, but John didn't stop, couldn't stop, had no desire to stop, and his hand reached Sherlock's groin and roughly rubbed and pushed through the cloth of his trousers, eliciting a gasp from the taller man.

Sherlock moaned and his hands came up once again and John batted them away before grabbing each of his wrists and pinning them, shoulder high, against the wall, and Sherlock suddenly felt teeth on his neck as John grinded against him. It was rutting, pure and simple, primitive and raw, and it didn't matter if their heights were wrong, and their clothes were in the way. It was punishing and demanding. "You lied, lied, lied," came the harsh cries in rhythm to his thrusts.

Sherlock struggled to remain passive because there was nothing he wanted more than to pull John closer and deeper into him.

John released Sherlock's wrists, but Sherlock didn't move. John worked his hands under Sherlock's arms and locked onto his shoulders from behind so that he could grip him even tighter, pulling himself upward as he pulled Sherlock down so that they were aligned. John's thrusts were relentless, bruising, and now there were tears on Sherlock's neck as every emotion John had felt was unleashed, as he pounded out all his grief and anger, emptiness and betrayal, surrendering to this base, life-affirming need.

"_John, please."_

"_Yes!" _John breathed.

It wasn't forgiveness, not even close, but it was permission, and Sherlock wrapped his arms around John's back, pulling him in, arching into the contact. John whispered, "You're back! You're back" like a litany, ending with a final gasp of "God, I love you!" and it was enough to push them both to climax. John shuddered until his body became wracked by huge, cathartic sobs, his head still buried in Sherlock's neck, but it was Sherlock's knees that weakened, and it was impossible to tell who lowered whom to the ground.

* * *

Ten minutes later, they were still sitting on the roof's surface, their backs propped up against the wall, legs extended in front of them, not looking at each other.

During his absence, Mycroft, of course, had kept Sherlock informed about John, but even his surveillance had not discerned the depths of John's grief, the crushing insomnia, the weight loss, the isolation.

"John, I had no idea."

"That's because you're an idiot."

"I've never been good at understanding how other people feel." Sherlock balled his hands into fists.

"Yeah, I got that."

"It was only after I left the country and the long days and nights…without you…that I understood, a bit. The enormity of being alone…" Sherlock's voice trailed off.

"Yes." John understood. Of course he understood.

"The biggest difference, of course, was that I knew you were alive."

"Yes," came the choked reply, and it almost broke Sherlock.

Sherlock was unnerved by a very uncharacteristic thought: if he lost John's friendship, would he lose a part of his soul, too? If their _anam kara_ was a broken chain? And then he had a sudden insight: is that what had happened to John during these grief-sticken months? He felt nauseous. _My God, no wonder the man felt betrayed._

After a ragged breath, he was able to continue. "By that time I was so entangled in the web that—. I was already committed, and you were still in danger. The only choice left was to finish it quickly, and come home." Sherlock risked a glance at John before looking away. "Am I home, John?"

John didn't answer. Sherlock squeezed his eyes shut. After a moment, John pushed his hand along the surface of the roof and laced Sherlock's fingers in his.

"And you'd do it again, wouldn't you, you bastard?"

"If the result was that Lestrade, Mrs. Hudson…" his throat tightened, "and you would live? Yes."

"Because friends protect each other." John sighed, coming to some kind of uneasy understanding that if the situations had been reversed, he might have done the same thing.

The wind picked up and the sun dipped behind the taller buildings. The men stood, got themselves sorted.

"Well this is awkward—our trousers are a mess. I don't fancy explaining this."

"Indeed." Sherlock said, as he shrugged into his coat. "We'll have to shield it from onlookers."

"Easy for you to say. You've got that Belstaff to hide behind."

"Then walk behind me."

"Don't I always?"

"Not anymore, John. By my side. Always."


End file.
